Newsweek USA 4.10.2020

34 NEWSWEEK.COM APRIL 10, 2020

The percentage of

workers who are concerned

about their job security

due to the coronavirus

ʡZENEFITS.COM

ECONOMY

sponsored by the U.S. Department of Labor.
Your biggest challenge in collecting may be get-
ting through to your state unemployment office.
Over the past week, applications for unemployment
in some areas are up by 1,000 percent or more
and understaffed labor offices and overwhelmed
computer systems just can’t handle the load, says
James Radford, an unemployment attorney in De-
catur, Georgia. “In Georgia, for example, our De-
partment of Labor is already pretty short staffed,”
he says. Some state unemployment websites, like
those in Colorado, Kentucky, New Jersey, New York
and Oregon, have already crashed and some phone
lines have hours-long waits.
To help keep the system moving, some state offic-
es are extending hours and adopting staggered appli-
cation times; in New York, for example, you’re now
assigned a specific day to apply based on the first
letter of your last name. One tip that could help you
get through is to avoid the Monday rush and apply
later in the week or very early or late in the day on
the website, when there will likely be fewer people
online. If you can’t get through and your benefits
are delayed, states like New Jersey are promising to
backdate claims so you won’t lose any money.

Identify Sources of Quick Cash
one other major provision of the stimulus
package: a one-time payment of $1,200 for individuals
with adjusted gross incomes of up to $75,000, $2,400
for married couples earning up to $150,000 and $500
per child. The payments begin to phase out above those
income levels and disappear completely for individu-
als with incomes that exceed $99,000 and joint filers
without children who make more than $198,000 a year.
Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin has said the
chack likely will arrive within the next few weeks.
As for whether the money will be taxed, several
ideas have been proposed: The cash could be pro-
vided as an advance on a future refund, the gov-
ernment could consider the check a gift and treat
it as taxable income or the money could be tax-free.
But you don’t have to wait for Congress to act to get
money from Uncle Sam, if you’re among the seven in
10 taxpayers who typically get a refund on your taxes
and you haven’t yet filed. The average refund so far
this year, according to the IRS: $3,064. Which is why
even though you now have until July 15 to submit your
return (and even longer if you file for an extension),

Marguerita Cheng, a certified financial planner and

CEO at Blue Ocean Global Wealth in Gaithersburg,

Maryland, urges anyone who’s been laid off and typi-

cally gets a refund to file as soon as possible.

Also think about other resources you can tap for

cash if needed. If you have equity in your home

and your spouse is still working, for example, you

may be able to qualify for a home equity line of

credit (HELOC) or home equity loan based on your

spouse’s income, Cheng says. Current average rate,

according to Bankrate: around 6 percent.

Although most financial advisors urge you to

consider tapping retirement savings accounts

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